Bare
by StillSilentWatcher
Summary: Roy Mustang had seen naked women before.


A/N: None of these characters are mine. Sadly...

* * *

Roy Mustang had seen naked women before. In fact, he was so used to it that the sight before him did not even make him bat an eye.

Since he was small, Roy had seen exposed bodies. Having grown up under Madame Christmas' care, he had quickly grown accustomed to the call girls that shared his home above his foster mother's bar. Roy learned at a young age that underneath the clothes of every individual was the same skin that he himself possessed. It was a fact of life that he had simply come to acknowledge sooner than most children. He remembered late nights in which he would awaken from his sleep and wander the halls of the small lofted apartments only to see the half exposed figures of the beautiful girls also roaming the night. Each time he would see them, Roy would freeze, unsure of how to react, and nearly every time the girl would turn around, pat him gently on the head and tell him to be a good boy and go back to bed. Growing up in that in that environment, Roy had also seen, what Madame Christmas had explained to him to be, "adult activities," and that too was categorized as a simple fact of life.

Later on in his teen years had been the military academy. A different environment than his childhood home, one of the few constants had been the people. Or, at least, the bodies. Living in such close quarters meant that, of course, the men in the barracks would be seeing each other changing and showering every day. Whereas most of the other soldiers had seemed squeamish about their new intimacy and proximity, Roy did not have any problems adjusting, something which the other men had been quick to note. For the first several weeks of training, nearly all of this bunk mates would attempt to "surprise" him, but without fail, Roy would react stoically, brushing them off. This of course, led the men to become frustrated, until they eventually stripped him of his clothes, making Roy the bare one. He remembered that night well. Out of the haze of punches raining down upon his exposed flesh, the form of Maes Hughes aiming a gun in the distance stood out clearly. And then it had ceased. From then on, Roy was left alone and he and Maes became inseparable.

Ishval was where everything changed. The simplicity of the human body had been warped in Roy's mind almost the first day that he spent on the battlefield. When he arrived at his station, his first assignment had been to burn the bodies of Ishvalan civilians that were covering the streets winding through the cities. If it had been that simple, perhaps Roy could have kept his pure image of the body, but upon arriving at the scene, he found this to be impossible. The people that lined the streets he was assigned to clear were not just dead. They were decimated. Their once beautiful bodies were mangled, mutilated almost beyond recognition of being human. Resisting the urge to vomit, Roy quickly unleashed his flames until there was nothing left but ash. It did not stop there, however. The horrors that Roy saw in Ishval were unspeakable. Despite having grown up in a hostess bar, Madame Christmas had always taught Roy that the women under her care and the women in similar positions were people to be respected. They were humans and their bodies and souls no different than his own. In Ishval this teaching had been turned on its head. Roy saw Ishvalan women, children, and even men violated in ways that he dared not speak of. He knew the faces of every soldier who committed these atrocities and by the end of the war there were few people other than Maes that he could bear to look at. Maes had been his rock, and had grounded him with his level-headed, down to earth analysis of the battleground surrounding them. Other than Maes, there was one soldier that Roy could stand to look in the eye, and she stood before him now, in the same bareness that Roy was so accustomed to.

* * *

Riza Hawkeye stood stock still in front of Roy Mustang, her torso completely exposed to her commander's gaze. In the dying light that burned through the window on the opposite wall, Roy could make out the enormous tattoo that covered the back of his old master's daughter. It was an intricate design, one of the most intricate that Roy had ever seen. Moving for the first time since Riza had shed her blouse, Roy quietly set down the notebook he had jotted the transmutation circle down on on a nearby stool and moved to pick up Riza's shirt to give to her.

Despite having a reputation in Central as being a womanizer, Roy Mustang was anything but disrespectful. He had had his fair share of nights with women, but they were not nearly as numerous as most people believed. Madame Christmas' teaching still rang in his heart, and he was sure to treat any woman he spent any night with with care and respect. Riza was no exception.

Although there had been no physical contact between the two, there was something between the two officers that hung in the air. It was not uncomfortable, despite Riza's staunch code of conduct clashing with her nakedness and the complete exposure of a woman's body laid out in front of Roy.

"Lieutenant," he said, cutting through the silence. "I have your father's notes. Would you like your shirt?"

Still not facing Roy or making any move, Riza muttered something that he could not make out.

"What did you say," he asked, inching closer to her.

"Burn it."

Roy froze. When the troops had pulled out of Ishval for the final time, he had come across the Lieutenant burying an Ishvalan child and she had uttered the same words to him, her voice desperate. Roy had hoped for the past several months that Hawkeye had made the request out of emotion, and that she did not truly wish for her commanding officer to burn the heavy burden from her flesh.

"Riza…"

This was one of the few times that he called her by her first name. Even when he had been a student training under her father, Roy had seldom seen the girl, who chose to hide away in her room or to roam for hours out on the acres of open land and woods that surrounded her and her father's decaying, impoverished household.

"Just do it."

Her words were absolute. Turning his attention back to his subordinate, Roy could see that Riza was visibly shaking, both out of the fear of the pain she knew she was about to subject herself to and the heavy knowledge of having the power to destroy forever on her skin.

Roy sighed, closing his eyes. How could he not relieve her of that suffering?

He stepped forward, coming to stand close behind her. Gently, he laid calming hands on her bare shoulders. Her skin was smooth and beautiful, warm to his touch. For a few seconds, Roy bowed his head and pressed his forehead to the back of her neck, inhaling softly.

"I'll try to make this as quick as I can."

* * *

Riza had not uttered a scream. Even now, as the pale skin of the rest of her body stood starkly against the angry red and white scorches marring her back, she did not make any sounds other than the occasional involuntary whimper that escaped her lips as Roy smeared cool burn cream onto his work.

Most of the tattoo was gone, burned away and replaced by horrific looking blisters that rose and puckered on Riza's formerly pure skin. She had shed her military issue pants and was now lying on her stomach, covered only by the thin sheets and her underwear, her face buried in her pillow.

Roy sat down on the edge of the bed, making certain that he did not shift the mattress in any way that could cause the girl before him pain. Slowly, he reached out a hand and laid it on the back of her head, stroking her hair gently.

It was a given that it would hurt. They both knew that. But even so, Roy could not help but appreciate his subordinate's body as it lay before him. It was not in a smutty way that he saw her. It was simply the appreciation he had gained for the body over his short 22 years. The curves of her body were soft, accentuating her thin form that was usually covered by the heavy military garb that was standard issue for all soldiers. It was an extremely rare occasion that Roy even remembered that his adjutant was a women and not just his most loyal man. Even under the burns, Roy could tell that she was a creature of beauty.

Of course, though, he smiled. He had always known that. Ever since he had seen her skirting around Berthold's house as a girl, he had known it. Burned, tattooed, or unmarked, it was the same. It was something that he couldn't deny and although he often put in at the back of his mind, he could never forget.

Riza Hawkeye was the most beautiful person that Roy Mustang had ever known.


End file.
